Iran to check report NSA spied on ayatollah during 2009 trip

Iran said Tuesday it will look into a report the United States spied on the country's supreme leader during his visit to a western province in 2009. Speaking at a press conference, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham said Iran would pursue allegations in a New York Times story published Sunday, the Tasnim news agency reported. The Times story, based on documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, said the NSA tracked the entourage of Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei as he traveled to Kurdestan. Using satellites, the agency gathered data for possible future eavesdropping by intercepting air traffic messages, studying Iranian air defense radar stations and recording Iranian satellite coordinates. Noting other reports the United States had spied even its allies, Afkham said Iran hopes the "mechanisms in international level are devised to prevent such acts, and we would support such mechanisms. We hope that resolutions discourage and prevent cyber-intelligence violating the privacy of political leaders and general public as well," the Mehr news agency reported. Germany and Brazil, both of whom have reportedly been spied on by the United States, have presented a draft resolution to the U.N. General Assembly calling for a right to privacy in the digital age.